


wings of a bird

by icemakestars



Category: Original Work
Genre: Death, Execution, Gen, Gun Violence, Historical Accuracy, Historical Figures, Real Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:47:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29300625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icemakestars/pseuds/icemakestars
Summary: James Connolly was an Irish rebel who fought against English rule in Ireland.On the 12th May 1916, when he was too weak even to stand, English soldiers used a chair to prop him up so that he could be executed.This is, in part, his story.
Kudos: 1





	wings of a bird

**Author's Note:**

> For university we had to write a scene about a historical character, a real life event which interacts with fiction. None of the characters besides Connolly are real. No disrespect is meant to Connolly's family, or the families of any of the rebels.
> 
> Title taken from an inscription from an unknown rebel inside a cell in Kilmainham Gaol:  
> “Here’s to the wings of a bird.”

The sun is peeking, unsure, from behind the clouds. My body is exhausted; limbs stiff and eyes drooping, I lean against the tired brick of the jail. The only thing keeping me awake is the adrenaline that execution promises. I know there’s irony in that I feel alive because I will be causing death, but I can’t seem to muster a small smile at the fact. Instead, I cough, inhaling the smoke from the soldier next to me without looking at them. My leg is bouncing without me thinking about it, and my eyes are constantly darting between the soldiers next to me and the only closed door in the courtyard. I cough again, fist darting to cover my dry mouth. All I can taste is yesterday’s beer and second-hand smoke, but there’s a crisp breeze caressing my face, and it forces everything into focus. Behind me there is laughing, and I ignore it.

“You should be used to this by now, Ainsley. You’ve served for long enough.” Brookes catches my attention with his playful words. I swivel on my heels to meet his eyes and they’re smiling at me, mocking me. I glare back and follow the cigarette as it drops to the ground and is crushed underneath Brookes’ dirty black boots. Watching the light be extinguished makes me feel sick, and my eyes water with the effort to not throw up.

He laughs at me cruelly, but I don’t have the time nor the energy to reply. The door at the forefront of the courtyard swings open and two soldiers enter slowly, their uniform clad bodies facing away from us. They wear green like toy soldiers, but there is nothing funny about the game of life and death we are about to play. I look down at my own uniform and sigh.

In tow they are dragging a hunched over figure, and my stomach reels. A third soldier scrapes a wooden chair along the brickwork, and my teeth are instantly set on edge. I grimace, taking one long breath of the brisk morning air and allowing it to sooth my aching consciousness. I can hear other men who are as unaccustomed to murder as I am do the same, but the sense of togetherness is lost on me today. Right now, I just want to go home.

The courtyard is dusty, but dry, and the thin patch of grass almost looks as though it has been placed here by accident. My worn muddy boots scuff idly at the ground, fingers itching against the uniform I am wearing, the colour a mouldy shamrock against the vibrant grass afore me. The wind picks up slightly, and I can hear the rackety gate groan unhappily as it is moves with the breeze. I imagine the flag billowing in this wind, the flag of Ireland that we tore down. I look down at my rifle.

A Lee-Enfield, brown and sleek and perfectly balanced; the best the country can offer. It is heavy in my sweat soaked palms, but I know that it is not the weight of the rifle that I am feeling. I avert my gaze to the name embroidered into the side of my jacket: _L. Ainsley_. I wonder what sort of a man he was when his mother stitched those words with pride, chatting happily to herself about how her eldest was going to be a hero. Whatever she saw in him – in me – at that time is gone now. I have seen atrocities beyond belief committed by young boys, older men, even women, and the thing that keeps me awake at night replaying those memories is that most of them were committed by men I see every day; my fellow soldiers.

No matter which way I think about things, nothing has changed since I arrived in Ireland; the rebels are persistent in their anger, and the more the British government challenge the vigilantes the more hostile the general population seems to become. There have been mistakes made on both sides, even I can admit that, but that doesn’t make taking life any easier. Even if they are an enemy of the crown.

And yet, how fickle the crown seems to be. It is supposed to represent solidarity and protection, but I have seen Irish children cut down in doorways; British soldiers dressed up as women to fool Irish civilians into a sense of security before slaughtering them; bodies desecrated, and men tortured to the brink of insanity. I joined the army out of a sense of pride, but the bile creeping up my throat at the notion of using the gun in my hand reflects the bitterness I feel whenever someone even utters the phrase ‘God Save The King’.

Looking at the man – James Connolly – I feel a twinge inside my chest. There is something indescribably melancholic in the way his body slumps as he is forced into the chair, something fragile and forlorn that I recognise from years of looking after my grandfather in his old age. At this thought, I can feel the guilt seep into my pores like venom, weakening my resolve into something bordering on non-existent. His sleeves billow in the chill morning breeze, and I see bruises lining them, as well as gashes that go deep into his sunken flesh. I know not all of those are wounds caused by battle, and I can hear the poorly stifled laughter from behind me. Hastily, I look away.

Connolly is dressed in a grey shirt which maybe was once white but holds little recognition of that now. It almost fades into the sickly pulp of his skin, and the fact that he is so visibly close to death eases my consciousness a microscopic speck. He still has a wife and children, a mother and father. He was just doing what he thought was best for his country. How am I any different?

“Did you hear about the soldier in that hotel?” One soldier whom I don’t recognise speaks to Brookes, and I can’t help but incline my head slightly towards his hushed tones. Brookes shakes his head, already looking bored from this conversation, and the soldier sighs, adjusting the felt cap further down his tanned forehead.

“He dressed up as a maid to shoot people he believed to be members of the rebellion. He killed over a dozen before they caught on and did him the same, right back… They’re trying to keep a lid on it back home, but it’s gonna get to the papers at some point.” He spits onto the dirt, eyes screwing shut as he shakes his head in dismay.

Brookes rolls his shoulders, and I see the fabric of his jacket shift uncomfortably over him.

“That’s gonna be a right pain in the arse for us, make us seem like the villains even though we’re just doing what’s right for the country.” He speaks too loud, and Connolly’s head snaps up. It’s the quickest I have seen him move, and it takes an obvious toll on him; he slumps back a second later, deflating into his grimy clothes and broken chair.

Brookes is so concerned with himself, and with the image of the army, that I start to wonder if he even sees this man in front of us as a human at all. I wonder if he understands that he has a family, that every man we have killed in the last two weeks have had families and homes that we have torn them from.

The soldier behind Connolly ties him to the chair he has been sat in, and it is such a pathetic sight. An intelligent man slaughtered like an animal; unable to move, too weak to stand. Before he moves away from the prisoner, my fellow soldier adjusts the sack over Connolly’s head, making sure that it does not move or slip when the gunshots begin. Connolly does not fight this, does not make any sign of recognition that it has happened at all. I know that his injuries are extensive, but these seem to be bordering on paralysis. The soldier takes up ranks with the rest of us, and wordlessly we move into the desired formation of the firing squad. This is not the first criminal that we have killed, and I always assumed that it would get easier with time. It was naïve of me to think so. It takes the last remainder of strength I have to keep last night’s beer in my stomach.

Despite his blindfold and bad back, Connolly leans against the chair and, ever defiant, tilts his head towards the sun. It kisses his face, sending a halo of shadows to fall back on the wall he’s propped up on. His legs are bent in an unnatural way, but there is no sign of pain on his face. Either that, or he is in so much pain that he can no longer process is correctly. With every fibre of my soul, I hope that it is the former.

He smiles, lethargic and wan, not as though we are beneath him but more as though he is above the situation he has found himself in; above the torture and the pain.

Above the inevitability of his own demise.

“Take aim!” General Packsman grunts, and the click of guns cocking echoes in the courtyard. It was almost a tut, as if even the weapons themselves disagreed with what we were about to do. I look down the line of men, all straight-backed and sullen, but no one shows any kind of remorse. There is an emptiness in their eyes, as though they are not even present. I wonder if that same dullness can be seen reflected in my own face. I hope not.

Connolly trembles slightly, but says nothing. The light flashes across his face as the sun fully takes its place in the sky, and I am struck suddenly with how frail he seems. The skin is stretched across his face in a manner that gives the impression that his bones are ready to erupt from the flesh at any second, and his clothes hang so loosely on him it is almost childlike. I am immensely grateful that I cannot see his eyes; the image of their no doubt skeletal and sunken appearance is horrifying enough to imagine.

“Fire!”

The gun takes on a personality of its own, staying sturdy even though I can feel my hands trembling, blowing smoke and taking life in a casual, unconcerned way. In seconds the first round of fire is over, ten quickfire bouts of thunder in my ears. I don’t look at the body. Without communicating, the second round starts, and my finger twitches on the trigger, not wanting to pull it but knowing that there is no other option.

Once the smoke clears and the ringing in my ears recedes into a wasps hum, I place my gun slowly on the ground. The second round of fire did nothing to ease my conscience, and even though I will never know if Connolly’s death is on my hands, staring down at the rifle which is so willing to take life, I realise that gunpowder stains more than blood, and somehow the idea that I may have taken a father away from his family will weigh on me for the rest of my life.

This war is hopeless and cruel, and it is supposedly on home soil. How are we supposed to fight off the Germans if we keep on fighting amongst ourselves? I have learnt many things since I arrived in Ireland, and I think of them now as I am fixated on Connolly’s corpse. That duty is a lie, and we are all just boys. That there is no such thing as good and evil, and that these rebels are not much different from us. That they were fighting for a sense of justice and honour; that we murder them for the same.


End file.
